For iGEM 2014, the UT Austin team has BioBricked two non-canonical amino acid (ncAA) tRNA synthetases with their cognate tRNAs. There are now three ncAA tRNA synthetases BioBricked, including one from last year's UT Austin team.
The 2014 UT Austin iGEM team felt quite strongly that we should make our ncAA reporter kit widely available as soon as possible. However, the pFYC and pFRY plasmids are meant to be a standardized measurement kit that is placed in a host cell alongside other plasmids (rather than a source of genetic parts that would be combined with other parts), so they are not standard BioBricks. We asked about an exception to place these plasmids in the Registry as a measurement device. In consultation with Vinoo Selvarajah (iGEM HQ), it was decided that, for now, we would include the relevant information here and share the kit plasmids (and cultures) with anyone who requests them ourselves, until the Registry is able to accommodate these types of devices.
We have included detailed information for our ncAA reporter kit here and also put the full sequences of these constructs on the Registry website.
The two key plasmids are:
pFRYC (BBa_K1416003) - Reporter plasmid with linker containing tyrosine codon.
pFRY (BBa_K1416004) - Reporter plasmid with linker containing amber codon.
In addition, you can ask us for one or more pStG plasmids like BBa_K1416002 for different ncAAs, as a control, if you like.
"
